Ch.71D – 14 (2)

“Guhak-“

Another Apostle falls with a short death cry as my sword strikes them down. This was the leader of this place and also the last remaining Apostle.

After checking if anyone was hiding nearby, I sheathed my sword and released the tension in my body.

“Phew, this should be enough for today.”

Originally, I had planned to attack six bases today. And the base where I’m standing now was the sixth one.

Not all Apostles were necessarily strong.

In fact, there were many more weak ones.

The ones I attacked today couldn’t be called strong either, and thanks to that, I was able to complete the raid without much difficulty.

But despite successfully completing the raid, my expression remained grim. It was even worse than before I started.

“Lady Frey, another altar for creating Bloodstones has been discovered here.”

“So they’re making them here too. At this point, we should assume they’re producing them at every base.”

It was because of the altars that produced Bloodstones.

The altars were inscribed with magic that converted life force into Bloodstones. They seemed to work regardless of whether the life force came from monsters or humans.

It even appeared they could extract life force from corpses that hadn’t been dead for long.

Of course, the energy of a single Bloodstone created this way was weak enough that it wouldn’t be a major concern.

But if these started being mass-produced, that was a completely different story.

Bloodstones gathered in one place could, depending on how they were used, become powerful energy bombs or power sources for weapons.

And the biggest problem was that the Apostles had finished preparations for mass-producing Bloodstones and were already making them.

‘If Apostles spread throughout the kingdom make Bloodstones, and collectors move them to the palace, that’s the structure.’

The entire kingdom could be called one giant factory, so I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many Bloodstones might be piled up in the royal palace.

What worried me even more was that I still couldn’t figure out what they planned to do with all those Bloodstones.

‘Use them for the Evil God’s descent? That should already be well underway, shouldn’t it?’

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t deduce what the Apostles had in mind with the information I currently possessed.

“For now, let’s take a short break.”

“Understood.”

No matter how much I thought about it, nothing changed.

So rather than continuing to waste mental energy, I decided to rest.

‘If I don’t rest now, I probably won’t get a proper chance later. Better rest while I can.’

Kitsune and I set up a low-grade defensive barrier and got some sleep.

* * *

In the dead of night when everyone was asleep.

Several armed Apostles arrived at the front of the base where the defensive barrier was deployed.

The Apostles wore expressions filled with killing intent, as if they were determined to kill whoever had raided and destroyed their base.

Among these Apostles, two stood out more than the others.

A pair of Apostles, one male and one female.

They seemed to hold higher positions than the others, as they were chatting among themselves in a lighter mood while the other Apostles remained tense.

“Huh, they set up just one pathetic barrier like this and are resting comfortably? I don’t know if that’s brave or just stupid.”

“Be careful, there might be traps. Hamlin, you got into trouble last time because of your overconfidence, remember?”

“Why bring that up now? Besides, this is just a low-level barrier, there’s no space for anything else to be installed.”

Hamlin snorted at the warning and began to disable the barrier as if to demonstrate.

And in less than a minute, Hamlin broke through the barrier, proving his point.

Having been proven right, he continued boasting.

“See, I told you there were no traps, Ansel. I can’t believe someone who only sets up barriers like this took down six bases. Those guys must be idiots.”

“Shut up. Are you going to take responsibility if you wake them up and things get complicated? Let’s just finish this quickly and go… wha…?”

Ansel, who had started scolding Hamlin to focus on the job, couldn’t finish her sentence.

Crackle-

She realized her lower body was freezing as cold energy crept along the ground.

“If you were worried about waking me up, shouldn’t you have been more careful? I’m already awake.”

“Who are you?!”

Hamlin seemed ready to charge at me, perhaps angered that I had frozen his body.

But he apparently hadn’t considered that his legs were frozen in place.

With his lower body immobilized while his upper body tried to move forward, he presented a comical sight as he wobbled.

“You seemed so confident, but I didn’t expect you’d be unable to deal with a little ice holding your legs.”

“You’ll die by my hands!!”

Provoked by my taunt, Hamlin began firing shockwaves at his legs with magic. It seemed he was trying to break the ice to escape.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’ve frozen you to the bone.”

“ARGH…!!”

However, that method wasn’t one I would recommend.

When something frozen not just on the surface but all the way through receives a shock, not only the ice breaks but the legs themselves shatter.

“You seem to have a mage’s abilities, but you act exactly like a berserker.”

“Ugh…! What are the others doing?!”

Having shattered his own legs with his own hands, he seemed to realize he couldn’t handle this alone and called for the other Apostles.

But unfortunately, there was no answer.

“What are they doing? They’re frozen.”

“What…?”

He had been so focused on me that he hadn’t noticed all his subordinates were frozen. He belatedly turned around.

And what entered his sight were the Apostles, frozen from head to toe.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know how to make frozen humans, so they’re probably dead.”

I looked down at him, and I could see deep despair clouding his eyes as he looked up at me.

Crack-

At that moment, Ansel, who had been quietly waiting for her chance, broke through the ice and charged at me.

With a sword in each hand, she began swinging them as if she would tear me apart at any moment.

In response, I released cold energy, but it wasn’t very effective.

“Hamlin, quickly cast a flame enchantment on me!”

“Y-yes!”

It was thanks to Hamlin’s timely flame enchantment that protected Ansel’s body.

As Ansel succeeded in getting extremely close to me, a glimmer of hope appeared in their eyes that had been losing hope.

They seemed to think that if they could just get close to an ice mage, they could easily win.

Of course, that logic didn’t apply to me, a swordsman.

“I was testing you, and fortunately, it seems you haven’t identified who the attacker is.”

“What…?”

“I needed to confirm how much you knew about me. I might have been followed or monitored.

I tried to be thorough, but you never know. So I tested you.”

The result was fortunately successful.

The Apostles only knew of the existence of an attacker, but hadn’t figured out who it was or what abilities they possessed.

“The less you know about your opponent, the more you’ll focus on trying to learn more. Information should be kept hidden as much as possible.

But if I hide completely, you might look elsewhere, so I let you at least detect my location.”

Though I was destroying bases and gathering information about Bloodstones, my original goal was to draw attention away from Leon’s group.

So even if I had other objectives now, I couldn’t neglect that.

“So… destroying our base and resting there was intentional?”

“Of course. What fool would raid a place and then rest there? Honestly, you felt something was off too, didn’t you? But you let your guard down when you saw the barrier.”

From the moment Ansel mistook us for strong but stupid, my trap could work perfectly.

“If you had approached more cautiously, who knows what might have happened.”

“Ha… haha….”

Ansel let out a hollow laugh in despair.

Hamlin too felt similar emotions and closed his mouth.

And according to the Evil God’s contract, the neutralized bodies of Ansel and Hamlin prepared for self-destruction. But their bodies didn’t explode from magical overload.

One step ahead of their explosion, I activated my charm.

“Before you go, shouldn’t you share some information? I’d prefer if you knew about the Bloodstones.

Now then… tell me everything you know.”

“…Yes, I will tell you everything I know.”

Ansel, under the influence of my charm, began explaining everything she knew like a soulless human.

And that included not only the locations of bases I hadn’t confirmed yet, but also information about the Bloodstones.